All people who write or talk about art seem to be angry at the real artists that they aren’t artists themselves.
The single character from a movie that I identify with most is Salieri from Amadeus.
“I will speak for you, Father. I speak for all mediocrities in the world. I am their champion. I am their patron saint.”
No, no he wasn’t but he could have been.
At least according to the movie, Salieri wanted so much to be a composer, prayed to God to become a great one, worked his ass off to be one, and became one. Then he saw Mozart and instantly knew how inferior he was. Raged at how easy it came to Mozart. Raged at how immature and childlike Mozart was.
This scene is the very definition of being owned.
The same thing happened to pretty much all of the guitarists in England when Chas Chandler brought Jimi Hendrix to England to rape and pillage and reclaim for America what they had supposedly stolen.
After they saw Hendrix, Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend were supposedly so depressed they wanted to quit for while, but they didn’t. I never had an ounce of musical talent, but I had the ambition, and I’ve felt that depression when I see someone like Jon Brion do things so easily off the top of his head in a small club. It can be both inspiring and devastating.
Inside Townshend worshipped Hendrix, but that didn’t make him lay down to him at the Monterey Pop Festival. Hendrix topped Pete by burning his guitar after Pete smashed his, but the competition made Pete better. Bird and Magic made each other better.
Of course art is not a competitive sport, but that doesn’t mean competition doesn’t make better art.
So Salieri got madder and madder and destroyed both himself and Mozart, but he forgot the one thing that he actually had going for him. He was the only guy who knew that Mozart was Mozart!
He was never going to be Mozart, but he could have been Jon Landau.
Landau helped Springsteen become Springsteen and got to go along for the ride. He made the best out of being Salieri!
